There is no passage in the Scripture more constantly garbled by Universalists, and some others, than Acts 3:21, in which the expression "the restoration of all things" occurs. In the verse as usually quoted, Peter, speaking of Jesus, says: "Whom the heaven must receive until the times of the restoration of all things;" and it is claimed that by the restoration of all things is meant the restoration of the whole human race to its primitive condition. But all these Universalists are also evolutionists. They believe that the human race was evolved from lower animals, and especially from apes and monkeys. And now here comes James Small, of Indiana, with the following inquiry:

      I want the force of the Greek on the word "restoration." If it will bear out the idea of restoring man to his primitive state of innocence and strength and purity, I should like to know it. On the other hand, if evolution is true, and our immediate ancestors were hairy quadrupeds and treeclimbers, the work after all in which we are engaged is not particularly profitable, seeing [404] we are only restoring man to monkeydom, his primitive state, according to the evolution theory.

      That is a center shot. Hit them again, Bro. Small.

      But it is by garbling the Scriptures that the Universalian evolutionists have exposed themselves to Bro. Small's merciless fire. They quote but a part of the sentence, leaving off a modifying clause. The whole of it reads, "Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things whereof God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets who have been since the world began." In other words, the heaven must receive (and retain) Jesus, until all things which have been predicted by God's holy prophets since the world began, shall be fulfilled. This is a totally different conception, and it is time that preachers of all classes had learned to quote the passage as it is.

[SEBC 404-405]